


Chords

by zeldadestry



Category: Entourage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:29:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric lets himself indulge the idea of caring for Vince and showing it, of how he would act if it was all out in the open, if they weren’t pretending it wasn’t important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chords

**Author's Note:**

> Tori was the character played by Malin Ackerman who had the 3some with Eric and Sloan.

Eric tries not to get too uptight about how the band fulfills a rock cliché. Yeah, they’ve all slept together, but it’s not an orgy every night, it was only one time, and everyone was so high or drunk it’d be impossible to prove what actually happened, he doesn’t recall anything from it himself. No, not entirely true, he does remember waking up to Vince watching him, a sneaky “I know a secret you don’t” smile slowly crossing his face, before Eric frowned at him and turned over to curl around Sloan.

 

Most of the time Eric spends nights after the shows with Sloan, but sometimes he’s with both Sloan and Tori. Any night Sloan and Tori go off together, though, he finds himself drawn to Vince, even if his friend has already obviously found someone he wants to fuck.

Tonight Sloan and Tori held hands as they raced to the elevators and kissed as they waited for the doors to open. Eric watched them from the hotel bar and gulped at his drink, hoping to forget Tori’s forced smile when Sloan asked him if he were going to join them.

Vince is hidden away in a corner booth with a woman he met backstage but he grins wide as ever when Eric interrupts and sits down across from them. “Ladies’ night?” Vince asks. Eric shrugs, stares at Vince, and he can see the woman looking back and forth between them in his peripheral vision. “Ready to go upstairs?” Vince asks the woman, without taking his eyes off Eric.

Eric shifts his gaze to the woman. She has long, black hair and her big, brown eyes are looking at him with warmth, even affection. It happens, but he’s never quite gotten used to it, the way fans consider him an actual friend. “What’s your name?” he asks.

“Audrey,” she says, and holds out her hand. Eric smiles as he shakes it. She reminds him a little of Sloan. He wonders if that’s why Vince picked her.

“I should warn you,” Vince says. “Eric falls in love with every woman he sleeps with. Don’t give him your number unless you’re looking for a stalker.”

“You’re an asshole,” Eric says, because he’s blushing and it pisses him off that Vince always gets to him. Stupid shit he so easily ignores when anyone else says it somehow matters whenever it’s Vince talking.

Audrey giggles, reaches out a soft hand and clasps Eric’s own. “Hey,” she says to Vince, “I can tell he’s a nice guy. He can stalk me anytime.”

“What about me?” Vince says.

“You’re obviously only good for fucking,” she says, still giggling, joking around, no meanness intended. Vince laughs back and no one except Eric would ever recognize that the words stung him, just a little, and that makes him wish Audrey, beautiful and sweet as she is, would go, leave him alone with Vince, let him prove, in a way he won’t be able to tonight, that he, Christ, he’s ridiculous when he drinks, doesn’t even have to get drunk to feel too much, just buzzed, and that tenderness he usually ignores grows so strong between his ribs, across his chest. He swallows down the rest of his liquor but that can’t wash away the word he knows, though he never uses it, that describes how he feels for Vince.

Audrey and Vince finish their own drinks and slide out of the booth, heading towards the elevators. Eric follows, a few steps behind them, until Vince turns around and waits for him to catch up. He’s got an arm around Audrey’s waist, and he drapes his other over Eric’s shoulder.

When they reach Vince’s room, Audrey, claiming she’s disgustingly sweaty from dancing at the show, goes into the bathroom for a quick shower. Vince kicks off his shoes and falls back on the bed, gets himself comfortably settled among the stacks of pillows before beckoning to Eric. Eric flops down next to him, would have even without the invitation, and slides both hands underneath Vince’s shirt, rests them over the dip of his lower back. Vince lets out a little hum, an unmistakable sound of contentment, and Eric kisses him before either of them can say something irrevocably stupid.

 

Eric prefers to save his heavy thinking for after noon but, the next morning, when he finds himself eating breakfast alone in the hotel’s restaurant, his consciousness circles the fact that his night spent with Vince and Audrey unfolded as all his threesomes with Vince do, because, at least in bed, if nowhere else, Vince likes to play director and give Eric orders. So he fucked her, while Vince watched, because Vince said so, and then Vince ate her out, and she sucked Eric until he was hard again, and then Eric fucked Vince and end scene. And it’s hot and it’s fun, but there’s something vaguely mechanical about it, and Eric’s left like this, half done with his omelet and staring into space wondering what’s missing, why things in his life that should satisfy him don’t anymore.

When Tori and Sloan walk in together, they’re clinging to each other. Still, Sloan slides in beside Eric when she reaches the booth, holds his face between her hands and kisses him. “Hey, baby,” she says.

When the two of them are back in New York, when they’re not on the road, Eric considers Sloan his. He spends a lot of time at her loft in Tribeca and, on most nights that he’s not there, she stays with him at his place in Brooklyn. Most weekends they take his mom out on Sunday, to a play, or a new exhibit at a museum, or for a walk in Central Park, and then eat dinner together, sometimes at a trendy new place Sloan wants to try, but more often at someplace less pretentious, someplace where his mom feels comfortable. Still, the first person Eric thinks of when he hears the word family is usually Vince.

 

Vince is with a guy tonight, some dude Eric’s pretty sure is another actor, who stands around preening but shoots dirty looks at anyone who dares to notice him. When Vince looks his way, raises an eyebrow, Eric just shrugs. He’s a little surprised when Vince leaves the guy alone at the bar and walks towards him, takes Eric’s arm and says, leaning in, “You wanna? He’s hot.”

“Honestly, I could take it or leave it.”

Vince lets a hand drift down to rest at Eric’s hip, draws him closer. “I know what you mean,” he says. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Aren’t you gonna say good bye to your friend?”

“No.”

“He looks pissed.”

Vince smirks. “He knows I just scored a way better lay.”

“What? Who?”

“You.” Vince pinches his ass and Eric socks him in the arm for it, but they’re both smiling.

 

Vince’s celebrity as an actor means the band gets asked to play some unusual gigs. This weekend they’re on the French Riviera, to perform at some business mogul’s pre-Cannes house party.

“Think we should stay for the film festival?” Eric asks Sloan, as they watch the sun set over the water from the balcony of their hotel suite. “Vince can probably hook us up with passes for anything we want to see.”

“You should do that, if it’s what you want,” Sloan responds, without looking at him.

He wonders if he should reach out for her, take her hand or put his arms around her, but when he steps in, her body tenses. “Is this - do you not want to be here?”

She laughs. “There’s no way to answer that without sounding like a jerk. How spoiled would I have to be to ever stop appreciating a view like this? I’m just ready to go home, you know?”

Eric doesn’t know how to tell her that, although he understands, he can’t agree.

 

After they finish playing the party, Sloan leaves to meet an old friend for dinner, and Vince is commandeered by the host, who wants to show him off to all the guests, so Tori and Eric hang out together by the pool, dipping their bare feet in the water and drinking swank champagne.

Eric watches Vince work the crowd but his attention drifts back to Tori when she says, “I’m moving to New York.”

“Yeah? Done with London?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then why?”

“You’re not the only one who loves her, you know.”

“Have you told her?”

“Not yet.” Vince has disappeared into the crowd, Eric can’t spot him anymore, but he can’t seem to stop looking. “Do you really think Sloan doesn’t see it, how no one gets between you and Vince?”

“Just trying to make sure he stays out of trouble,” Eric says.

“Every second of every day?”

“Me and Vince, it’s not like you think. It’s not serious.”

Tori pats his head. “I love you, Eric, but you are fucking clueless.”

 

Eric lets himself indulge the idea of caring for Vince and showing it, of how he would act if it was all out in the open, if they weren’t pretending it wasn’t important. Like now, watching Vince in the corner with two guys, laughing, everything looks so easy, but he can always tell when Vince is giving too much, working too hard to be cool, for people to like him, and what should Eric do? He knows, he lets himself cross the room, lets Vince introduce him to the guys, a producer and a screenwriter, lets his hand rest at the small of Vince’s back. Eric listens to the conversation, contributing little, just taking the measure of the guys, so that he’ll be able to advise Vince if he ever asks. He listens, and he finishes his drink, and he circles his thumb over Vince’s back, and feels how the edge has already vanished; he can tell now that Vince really doesn’t care what these guys think of him, that he can take or leave their opinions and their regard.

 

He’s had a lot to drink, and took a pill someone passed him without asking what it was, and now he’s slumped against the wall, watching how the lights of the boats out on the water shimmer and shake.

When Vince joins him, he says, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t look so good, E.”

“I’m tired.” Eric holds up a finger. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.” He holds up another. “My shoulder hurts.” He shakes three fingers in Vince’s face. “So shut up.”

Vince takes his other wrist. “Come on,” he says, pulling.

So Eric does what he does best, he just goes along with Vince, following him back to his suite, falling face down on the bed, lying there motionless and starting to hum along when he hears the Velvet Underground. Vince crowds in beside him, strokes a hand up his spine, which makes Eric shiver, bite his lip. The simplest touches from Vince should not effect him like they do. “I think I should marry Sloan.” Vince’s hand stills, pulls away. “What do you think?” He cracks his eyes open, but Vince isn’t looking at him.

“I think you should do whatever makes you happy.”

“Thanks, mom,” Eric grumbles.

Vince tugs at Eric’s thin cotton sweater. “Take this off,” he murmurs. Eric pushes up to sitting, drags it and then his t-shirt over his head. Vince’s fingers press at his right shoulder blade. “This one again?”

“Yeah, I wrenched it.” This is the point when Vince usually bawls him out for being so insistent on helping the crew move heavy equipment, but tonight he’s silent. “What? No I told you so?”

Vince ignores the comment. “Lie down again.” He reaches into the drawer of the bedside table and draws out a tube of lotion that smells like vanilla when he opens it. His hands are strong as they knead at Eric’s muscles, erasing the tension and even the pain.

The record plays, and sometimes Vince sings along. Every time he does, Eric sinks deeper into his perfect daze, into this world where there’s nothing but warmth and Vince’s touch and his voice. “How do you do that?” Eric asks, already beginning to doze, his lips parted and the pillow a little damp from his drool.

“Do what?”

“Make me feel-” He doesn’t know the word.

“Feel what?”

He tries to figure it out, knows Vince is waiting, wondering. “Everything,” he whispers.

Vince settles over him, covers Eric’s body with his own, so close that Eric breathes shallow, his ribs compressed into the mattress by Vince’s weight above him. “E, don’t, don’t get married,” he says, lips brushing the curve of Eric’s ear.

“Why not?”

Vince bites the back of Eric’s neck so hard it’s clear he doesn’t care how much it hurts. “You know why not,” he says. “You know.”

 

When Eric wakes up the next morning, he finds Vince in the living room of the suite, sitting on the couch in his boxers, lazily strumming his guitar. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Better,” Eric says, sitting down at his feet. “Thanks.” He listens to Vince play, his brain still struggling awake. After a few minutes, Vince puts his guitar aside, pushes his fingers through Eric’s hair. “I think I should move out to LA.”

“Awesome,” Vince says. “I mean, I’ve only been trying to get you out there for fifteen freaking years, dude.”

“You gonna help me find a place?”

“Are you kidding?” Vince slides off the couch and down onto the floor to sit beside Eric. He hides his face against Eric’s throat and mumbles, “Stay with me.”

“Stay with you?” Eric swallows. “Like - live with you?”

“Yeah,” Vince says. “Of course.”

 

Vince is waiting on his front steps when Eric drives up. “Hey,” Eric says, getting out of the car.

Vince comes around to meet him. “Hey.”

They hug, stand in silence for a long time, arms around each other.

“Welcome home, E.”

“Yeah,” Eric says, and holds him tighter.


End file.
